Hello, Stranger
by RedNovember
Summary: [ZK AU] This is how we met. This is how we lived. And, once upon a time, this is how we loved.
1. This Is How We Met

**Chapter 1: This Is How We Met**

She smiled, wide gaze unblinking. "Hello, stranger."

The scar on his face prickled as her direct stare remained glued to his features. Why wasn't she recoiling in horror? Gasping in fear? Wincing in disgust?

And it wasn't until he looked closer than he noticed there was something _off_ about the brilliant blue of her eyes. In the left one—there, marring the cerulean sky of her iris—a sliver of red, a chip of blood. He moved slightly to focus on it, fascinated and curious; a few seconds more, and he finally realized—

Her eyes did not move to follow his motion. He leaned to the left; her eyes stayed fixated over his right shoulder, her expression open and waiting for a response.

She couldn't see him.

A million thoughts crashed through his mind: Who was she—blind?—where are you from? You—you don't know me at all! (and this last one was hope in anonymity).

"Hello," he smiled, the red tissue stretching over his cheekbone, most definitely turning his grin of goodwill into a sickening, terrifying monstrosity--he never smiled, because of that.

But he did now, with wild abandon.

Because he'd finally found somebody he could start over with.

* * *

**A/N: **This is a drabble from awhile ago. I read over it again yesterday. Today on the bus coming home from school, there developed a nice long plot. An outline is currently forming and hopefully more chapters will as well.

I thought I was done too. Guess not.

Reviews, comments, etc.—all would be much appreciated.


	2. The Awakening

**Chapter 2:**** The Awakening**

_3 months ago_

She woke up crying, and had no idea why.

Confusion—pain—why am I _crying_—because she was; she was absolutely sobbing. Huge, thick cries forced their way from her throat and chest. She could feel tears streaming down her face. She was on her side, on some sort of thin mattress, her back against a wall.

It was dark. Everything was dark.

All of a sudden, the floor underneath her _shifted_, tilting, and she was rolled over onto her stomach. Pain ripped across her ribs and she couldn't breathe because it hurt—oh it hurt so much—oh stop, please—and the world tilted _again_, her body following, ending up back against the wall.

It happened several more times, the infernal rocking about of her world, and she hadn't the strength to keep herself on her back and off her ribs—but it didn't matter, because everything hurt anyway, on her back or on her side. She was bruised horribly, perhaps something was broken, and she was sure she had to be bleeding somewhere. Or maybe it was just the tears.

Back-and-forth, back-and-forth—as if she were on a ship, on the rolling waves of the ocean, being tossed about in the open sea—

The ocean! Perhaps she could escape.

And she was confused, once again. What did the ocean have anything to do with her escaping? Why had the thought even crossed her mind? She didn't even know if she could swim. Why did she need to escape? Why was she even here?

She tried to calm her breathing. She tried to stop crying—after all, what was the use of crying if she didn't even know why she was doing it in the first place? Other than the pain, everywhere the pain; but it hurt less to breathe calmly, to stop the hitching of her breaths, in and out, in and out.

She lay there for she didn't know how long. Staring into the darkness above her, bracing her right arm against the wall every time the boat—for she was sure it was a boat now, she could even smell the saltwater, the familiar dampness in the air—tilted from the waves. She couldn't use her left arm. She thought maybe it was broken.

And why was it broken?

She pushed the thought away. Figure it out later. Do easier things first. She could sense the movement of her world. She was on a boat. Yes. She could smell the sea in the air, the tangy salt and water, so much water, perhaps just on the other side of this wall. She could feel the worn cloth of the pallet beneath her. Her fingers slowly quested across the surface of the thin mattress, pulling and releasing, dragging the heavy weight of her arm—until l a small drop-off, from the pallet to wood. She continued, feeling grooves and eventually cracks, telling her there was wooden planking beneath her fingers.

She could taste salt in her mouth. Salt and something else. Blood. At least her teeth were all there. Her lower lip had a large gash. She felt it with her tongue, wincing. It felt like she'd bitten through it. Why. No. Why.

She had her eyes open—or at least she thought she did. It was so dark that when she feebly lifted her right hand in front of her face, she couldn't see it. She _touched_ her face with her hand, and she still couldn't see it.

She let her arm fall back down to her side.

She blinked, and tried not to let the panic overwhelm her.

Tried not to let the _Why am I here_, _Why do I hurt,_and _Why do I cry_ overwhelm her.

_Who am I._

* * *

Creak of metal swinging open. 

Footsteps; soft, hesitant.

"Oh," said a low, quiet voice. "Oh, you poor, sad girl."

She felt a hand on her forehead and screamed.

Immediately he—whoever it was—removed his hand. She kept on screaming and flailing, causing pain to erupt all over her body. Fear coursed through her, fear of this man, fear of his touch, fear of herself and the unexplainable—she couldn't remember a goddamn thing—and it was still so dark—too dark.

She'd started crying again, her breath catching in her chest, hurting her bruised (broken?) ribs and she felt so helpless and hopeless, lying there, so vulnerable and unable.

Her ears picked up the sound of somebody—the same man from before?—settling down a bit away from her. She could hear him breathing, calm and deep. Faintly she noticed that the ship was no longer rocking as violently as before. It was a gentle lull now, the way a mother would rock her child to sleep in a cradle.

"We've arrived," he said from his corner, and she thought he must be old, or at least grown—that soft gravel in his voice, the patient calm, the knowledge in his slow tone. She no longer shivered as fearfully as before. This wasn't the same man as—as who? What other man? She didn't know any men.

"Where?" she croaked out, a simple question with what surely must be a simple answer. She was too weak for the complicated ones right now (_who am I_).

"The Fire Nation."

"The Fire Nation," she repeated. Her voice cracked, sounding disused and ugly to her own ears. The Fire Nation. She knew what the Fire Nation was. She knew there was a Fire Nation, an Earth Kingdom, a Water Tribe, and what was it—what was the last one—oh, god, she had to know it—

"Air?" she asked.

She could feel the man's confusion through the darkness. "The Air Nomads?"

Yes. She sighed. The Air Nomads. She knew of them too. "We are in the Fire Nation?"

"Huo Li Harbor, to be exact."

"Oh." She didn't know this harbor place.

Silence.

She tried again. "Have I—have I been here before?"

"You—I—well," he stumbled. She could hear the surprise in his voice. "You—you don't know?"

She lay there on her back, staring up into the darkness. She wondered where the ceiling began. She assumed it was high enough to stand, because the old stranger in the corner had walked in, she thought. But the ceiling could have been two inches or two miles from her face and she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

"No," it was her turn to admit something, "No, I don't know." Her voice wavered at the end, fear and panic settling in again.

"It's probably just a bump to the head," he soothed her, and she allowed herself to be soothed, because even though she had no idea who he was, she needed something to hang onto in order to keep from descending into a full-blown panic, and she chose his voice. "People often forget things for a small time after head injuries."

"I—I have a head injury?"

"Well, I won't lie to you," he said, tone all seriousness, "from just what I can see, you look very beat up to me. There's blood, and quite a bit of bruising everywhere, perhaps a few broken bones—"

"Wait," she cut him off, and her voice was a whisper, almost a hiss. "Stop."

He paused.

"You can see me?"

"I'm not sure," he said slowly, "what exactly you are asking me."

"Just tell me!" and she was shrieking now, "_Can you see m__e_?"

"Yes, I can. There is a lamp here, on the floor, next to my right foot," he said, sounding like he was talking to a frightened animal ready to lash out at any moment.

"No there isn't," she whispered into the darkness. "There is no light in here."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. Why was he apologizing? "Please try to stay calm—loss of sight for a brief time can also be another side effect of head injuries."

She was trying, she was trying so hard to stay calm but already she couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe for the panic and the confusion and, "I don't remember anything!"

She said it out loud again, finding strength in voicing the million thoughts crowding her head, her head with all the goddamn injuries fucking up her world, "I don't remember anything!"

"All right," said the old man.

"I don't know who I am. I didn't know where I was up until a moment ago. I don't know how old I am, how I came to be here, how I got all these damn head injuries—I don't know how I broke my arm and—and I don't know why I'm—I'm blind."

She repeated the last part again. "I'm blind."

"Yes, I think you might be," he agreed softly.

"I'm not supposed to be, I don't think," she said, trying to sound rational. "I know what the sky looks like. I know what a cloud looks like. I know trees and I know the ocean. I know what people look like and I know what animals look like. I know colors. I'm not supposed to be blind."

"No, I don't suppose you are."

She breathed. She didn't even know if her eyes were open or closed. How could she tell? It would hurt too much, she thought, to lift up her hand to feel if her eyelids were covering her eyeballs. Everything hurt too much. She started to cry again, just a little bit.

The old man did not say anything.

"I'm thirsty," she forced through her tears.

She could hear a rustle of cloth as he stood up. "I will be back shortly," he promised, and left, a door squeaking closed behind him.

She was alone again, and she shivered, thinking over and over again, _who, what, where,_ until she heard the door opening again.

"I'm back," he said.

Footsteps across the room—it must have been a small room, it did not take him long to cross it—and she felt the mattress shift ever so slightly as he knelt down next to her.

"Don't move," he admonished her gently as she attempted to sit up. "I will place the cup to your lips and you will drink."

She obeyed, aand drank a strange-tasting liquid from a strange man in a strange room on a strange boat in a strange harbor. She could die now, and nobody would ever know. Perhaps nobody would care—perhaps she didn't have a family, or friends, or anything else at all.

No, she thought, as the old man lifted the cup from her lips and she relaxed. She'd had a family. She didn't know how she knew it—but she'd had something. Parents? Siblings ? A husband? A lover? Maybe even… children?

No children. She knew that too, somehow. She didn't feel old enough to have had children. It was just a feeling. A gut feeling. Intuition. From inside.

Sleepy. Oh.

"Wait," she whispered, "what did you do to me?" She was having a hard time summoning up the energy to be angry and frightened. She just wanted to drift—drift away—

"A mild sleeping potion," he said, and his voice was mild, slow, quiet. "You are in a lot of pain from your injuries, and you need your rest. When you wake up, you will feel better."

"No," she protested, even though by this point, she was unsure of what exactly she was protesting against. "Wait."

"Yes?"

"I—I can't remember." She was so close to gone now.

She mumbled something, and knew it was unintelligible. Oh well. It would be too much effort to actually open her mouth and say something understandable. She'd just sleep.

Just… sleep…

* * *

Iroh closed the barred metal door of the cell behind him, pulling out a key to lock it. 

He picked up the saucer with the now-empty teacup upon it, and slipped the packet of sleeping powder into his robe pocket. Walking along the hallway to leading back up to the deck of the ship, he tried to keep his hands from shaking.

The poor girl.

Even in the flickering lamplight, he'd seen the open wound on her cheek, the limpness of her broken arm, all the black-and-blue bruises spread across her face, her neck, the red sores disappearing beneath the ragged brown shift she wore—and the blood, the dried blood in her hair, her skin, caked on her thighs and her feet. The way she lay there, silent and still. The way he thought she'd refused to see him, her enemy, eyes fixated in the air above her face, stubborn and unmoving.

Iroh had thought he was being ignored by her because she'd seen that he was so obviously Fire Nation—his red robes and insignia. She must have been captured from the Southern Water Tribe, and from the looks of it, her treatment hadn't exactly consisted of tender, loving care. Any normal prisoner would have been angry, frightened, absolutely terrified—Iroh had assumed she'd thought he'd been there to beat her (her injuries suggested she had been badly treated) or something even _worse_.

But she hadn't refused to see him. She _couldn't_ see him. She didn't know who she was, who Iroh was, where she was—she had not understood her situation. She couldn't have seen him even if she had wanted to.

Iroh stepped out of the darkness and into bright daylight. A small group of soldiers was lounging around by cargo stacked in the stern of the ship. They were passing around a bottle, laughing raucously and slapping each other on the back. Iroh's face tightened as he approached them. He caught bits of their conversation that drifted over to him on the wind:

"This drink's to Admiral Zhao!"

"Real soldier, him, knows what we want…"

"… that girl, blue eyes? Never seen one like her before."

"... Zhao, great man, great man..."

Iroh somehow managed to keep his firebending under control. "Soldiers!" he snapped.

They spun around to see him, one of them dropping the bottle—it shattered as it hit the deck, the yellow drink inside spreading out.

"General Iroh," said one, slurring his words slightly.

He stared at them stonily for a few seconds. Two or three began to realize this was serious, and fumbled, trying to straighten uniforms and stand upright.

"This ship," Iroh began, jaw stiff, "is no longer under the command of Admiral Zhao. You are all now under my command, and on a ship of mine, disorderly conduct like this could get you dismissed. Permanently."

"Where's ah—ah, Admiral Zhao?" one of the soldiers asked—he looked too drunk to even walk properly.

"He's been relieved of his command temporarily."

"But why?"

Iroh was quickly losing all patience. How had discipline deteriorated so drastically like this on a military ship belonging to the Fire Nation Navy? It was horrendous.

"Mounting an unauthorized raiding attack on the Southern Water Tribes will do that to you," Iroh said, almost gritting through his teeth.

"Not—totally—un, un, unauthorized," the soldier mumbled. "Fire Lord hates Water Tribes. He'll like what the Admiral did. Fire Lord will be—Admiral will be okay."

Iroh said nothing. His brother's opinions of the other nations were widely known among the Fire Nation populace, as well as the rest of the world.

"It is not for you to assume what the Fire Lord does or does not approve of," Iroh said, but before he could continue, the soldier's rolled back into his head, and he dropped into a slump at Iroh's feet. Iroh looked at him with barely concealed disgust and snapped at the remaining soldiers, "Pick him up and get him off my ship."

As they shuffled around their comrade, Iroh turned his back on them and pointed at another Fire Navy soldier to clean up the mess the broken bottle had made on the deck of the ship.

He had to hurry. The girl in the cell—she had to be moved, and quickly. A doctor would be summoned for her as soon as Iroh had her in the Fire Palace, perhaps a small room in the maids' quarters.

Iroh couldn't explain why, exactly, he was so concerned about the girl. It didn't really make sense. He'd seen prisoners of war before. He'd seen decimated villages and executed civilians. He'd walked past cells of rebels and dying innocents.

Perhaps it was her obvious youth, and the multitude of injuries on her body. Perhaps it was because this time, he had the power to actually do something about it.

_Unlike before. _

_Zuko._

If he could just salvage one innocent life from this mess that Zhao had made—give that poor prisoner in the hold another change to begin her life anew, away from the blood and god-forbid whatever other horrors she had experienced—if he could do only that, then perhaps the heavy guilt upon his shoulders would lighten, just a little bit.

_Zuko_, he thought silently, _Zuko, my nephew, __don't give up. I'__m almost there._

* * *

**A/N: **I had this chapter finished a couple days ago but I delayed putting it up because I had to flesh out more of the outline and get my timeline and plot in place. In the end I had to edit several portions of this chapter to make it fit with what I wanted to happen—if I had posted it in a hurry, I would have pretty much screwed myself over for future plot points. 

I also recently read this Zutara story, _**Beauty and the Beast **_**by Yoru no Hime.**She's got 5 chapters up so far and not nearly enough readers/reviewers. It's a very fun read, so go check it out.

Oh—I love Zhao. Just to let you know. I delight in his horrible acts and evil doings. Even though he's technically dead on the show—I make a good effort to keep him alive by writing him into my stories. Even though everyone who's ever read one of my stories knows Zhao always kind of… dies, at the end. Can't help it.

Thanks for all the reviews!


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